Holding Hands
by algyy
Summary: Constance and Imogen take their newfound love on a romantic getaway. But romance isn't all plain sailing when you're still haunted by your past.


Imogen:  
Sunday in Vienna - could anything be better? The sun is shining, and the roses of the Volksgarten are all in bloom; I think there may be violins playing somewhere, drowned out only momentarily by the tinny sound of Boy George emanating from a pair of iPod speakers on a picnic rug.  
And I'm here, me, Imogen Drill, here in Vienna with her, Constance, Miss Hardbroom, the woman I love. She walks at my side, in the black dress I saw her put on this morning, wearing the burgundy lipstick I watched her apply - quickly, briskly, the way she does everything - in the mirror of her en suite bathroom. Her hair is pulled back as usual, but it was loose last night, and I ran my hands through it, and kissed those lips until not a trace of lipstick remained...she's here, with me, all mine, and I am the happiest woman on earth.  
Seeing her here, in a different and unfamiliar location, makes me fall in love all over again, and I smile as I remember all the wonderful things she said to me, the promises we made, the kisses we exchanged, last night in a hotel bed.  
I'm in love, bloody well in love, and I want to proclaim the fact to the whole world, dance round this rose garden like I'm in some kind of musical. I can assure you this is not normal behaviour for me.  
Does she feel the same? I love her, and I like to think I know her better than anyone - but she still all too often leaves me baffled. She makes it her prerogative to look impassive and imperious at all times - but I've seen her with her guard down, with her long dark hair falling over her bare breasts and her lips all swollen with my kisses. I've kissed her eyelids while she sleeps. I've held her close and she's whispered that she loves me.  
She's carrying a guidebook at the moment; it's over twenty years old, but she treats it like a Bible. She's been making me look at culture, and I'm in so in love that I've actually tried to appreciate it. I believe she thinks she's improving me. She holds forth on the city's history from time and time, and I hope to God there's not going to be a test later, because sometimes I get so distracted by the way her lips move that I completely forget to listen.  
She looks so pale and demure, here amid all the wild riotous colour of the roses, but I know the truth, I know the Constance who hides beneath the guise of Miss Hardbroom. I reach out and take her slender hand in mine.  
And she pulls it away.  
"Constance," I protest.  
"You know quite well what I think of public displays of affection," she says, in that sharp voice like broken glass that she does so well.  
"I'm only trying to hold your hand," I say, "It's not like I was trying to shag you senseless in a flowerbed."  
A faint blush comes and goes in her pale cheeks; she says curtly, "There is no need to be crude, Imogen." Sometimes in her company I feel like a recalcitrant pupil.  
"Why can't I hold your hand?" I say.  
"It would be improper. We are in a public place."  
"So? Who's even going to care? It's the twenty-first century, for God's sake. Women are allowed to hold hands in a park."  
But I'm fighting a losing battle; I know it all too well. She lives by rules that went out of date years ago, and she never likes to let her guard down, would die rather than draw attention to herself or admit that she has feelings. Perhaps, if her past wasn't what it is, she would think differently about it. But she's afraid to be seen holding my hand in public, afraid of some disapproval or violence to come; the spectre of that old bitch Mistress Broomhead hovers always over her, and has left scars not just on her skin.  
I know all this, and I've told her I understand - but look, I never said I was a saint. When I'm hurt, I don't care how broken or fragile she is.  
Angry words are exchanged in the Volksgarten that day, amid all the roses in bloom. We always know just how to hurt each other, and, when we can take no more, we part ways acrimoniously, and, wandering round Vienna by myself, I wonder if I was perhaps a fool to ever believe such a love could last.

Constance:  
Was I a fool to ever believe such a love could last? I wonder it as I perch on a pew amid the sober splendour of the Karlskirche. I should perhaps be admiring the magnificent arches of marble and gold that comprise the church's décor, the splendid frescoes of Johann Michael Rottmayr, the tromp d'oeil by Gaetano Fanti. I should stir myself to view the painting of St. Elisabeth by Daniel Gran. But, in truth, all that has lost its savour; it all seems oddly meaningless without her. She is a philistine, of course; why I miss her inane chatter I cannot imagine, but it seems impossible to ever appreciate another fresco without it.  
My head is bent as if I am in prayer; in fact I am scrying in a piece of rough-cut raw quartz. No doubt it is very wicked to practise witchcraft in a church - still, what's one more sin among so many?  
I bought the quartz half an hour ago, for this very purpose, though I didn't admit it even to myself.  
She's not far from where I am, though we might as well be on separate continents. I do believe she might be lost; the map is in my guidebook. She is eating a packet of those ghastly boiled sweets she likes so much, and her expression is inscrutable.  
I make the image vanish, lean forward, rest my head on my clasped hands. Merely to feel, to experience emotion, is exhausting to me - yet I seem to do little else where Imogen is concerned. We always know just how to hurt each other. Perhaps pain is all we deserve.  
I don't know how it is that she finds me there. I won't believe any romantic theories about her feet knowing where to tread. I feel her hand on my shoulder, and look up to see her looking so repentant, and so very beautiful, that I lose my heart all over again.  
We speak in low voices and half-finished sentences, and understand instinctively all that goes unsaid. In a shadowy corner of that church, I kiss her lightly on the lips, just enough to get my fix of that indefinable taste of boiled sweets and lip-gloss and Imogen.  
The sun is setting; the guidebook informs me that the view of the Karlskirche across the square at this hour is impressive, but I barely glance at it. Why should I want to, with Imogen at my side?  
As make our way back to our hotel, I take her hand.


End file.
